Anyone who studied basic West African history would know how what exists today as the Nigerian supra-national state came into existence—it is an arbitrary imposition on the diverse nationalities that inhabit the parts of the Niger basin that the British called Nigeria. In the many years that I have researched and studied political evolution in and amongst these diverse nationalities, I’m yet to find or been shown a document that bears witness to a voluntary declaration made by their truly elected representatives that they surrendered their general will and allegiance to the supra-national state.
Elsewhere, including parts of Africa such as Tanzania, Botswana, and South Africa, the afore-stated scenario was the case. That, is one of the several reasons political stability prevails in them. Instead, in the case of the parts of the Niger basin in question, the archives are littered with all manner of documents under the label of “constitution” written by groups of actors who claim that they represent their distinct inhabitants. The latest of those documents was dated 1999. Its provisions proclaim the “legitimacy” that gave birth to the contraption that Mr. Umaru Yar’Ardua presided over in Abuja since 2007 until he voluntarily abdicated to an unknown destination since more than forty-five days ago.
I’m not a lawyer. But I’m sufficiently educated to infer from my research and studies to argue that there is logically no legitimate grounds for any of the nationalities that inhabit the Niger basin that finds itself capable, to waste another day before it disentangles itself from the Nigerian supra-national state. Politics is the act of the possible. Mr. Yar’Ardua’s abdication should be taken for what it truly is—a legitimate indicator of the ruse that has been used to frustrate genuine political development amongst the inhabitants of the parts of the Niger basin that were called Nigeria. If the latest inheritor of the ruse could take the liberty to violate vital
provisions of the instrument from which he claimed the “legitimacy” to wield power and authority over the nationalities, by way of abdication, it’s in deed rational and legitimate to argue that now is the time for the nationalities, any one of them that wants and is capable of to summon the nerves and walk!
●E.C. Ejiogu, PhD is a political sociologist.
(culled from www.saharareporters.com)
